Friday, September 21, 2007

We are breaking the 24-hour rule, not to gloat nor even reflect, but to apply a lesson forward.

If you remember when Gene Stallings stepped down as head coach of the Crimson Tide (I hate to imagine what rule we’re breaking here), many of the Alabama faithful cast a suspicious leer toward Frank Beamer, a coach at a polytechnic school who could not sport championship hardware. No, many Alabama fans had their man selected before Stallings even cleaned out his office.

That man was Mike DuBose.

If you remember, after Mike DuBose (ahem) left, many of the Alabama faithful were unworried by Dennis Francione’s unsigned contract. It was all legal mumbo-jumbo, after all. These kinds of things take time, you understand. Furthermore, any talk of Francione leaving Alabama for Texas A&M, to be charitable, a sideways move, would be absurd. Francione is a perfect fit for Alabama, so why would he leave?

Francione’s Aggies lost to Miami last night.

If you remember the NCAA sanctions that were handed down to Alabama, many of the faithful were surprised--nay, shocked!--at such harsh penalties. Were not other schools just as if not more guilty of malfeasance? Were not we a powerhouse in college football that the NCAA would not dare attempt to tear down?

The probation, after the sanctions, ended just this year.

If you remember the coaching search that resulted from Francione’s late night exit and the coaching search that resulted from Mike Price’s late night entry, many of the Alabama faithful were hopeful that Mike Shula, a favored son (in more ways that one), would be young enough, innovative enough, and hungry enough to lead the Tide through the roughest portion of those above-mentioned sanctions.

Alabama fans still get jittery in the red zone.

If you remember the last coaching search, there were many among the Alabama faithful who called for the head of one of their own. Having delayed and delayed, Mal Moore acted like he was the only man in the entire state who knows two shits about football. And when he opted to wait on Nick Saban to finish the NFL season and when he low-balled Rich Rodriguez and let him fly back to West Virginia to consult with his family and his alma mater, many of the Alabama faithful were at their breaking point.

Which brings us to the 24-hour rule.

If you remember where you were last weekend with just under four minutes left in the game and you saw Nick Saban on the sideline and saw him send in the field goal unit with his team down by a touchdown, you know why Mal Moore acts the way he does: he’s right.

At least, he was.

Now, there are at minimum two people in the state of Alabama who know something about football, who know how to take pressure off a young kicker yet give him a chance to redeem himself, who know that you have to score more than 13 points to beat an SEC team, who know that defense is a part of the game and you use it to get the ball back, who know that many of the Alabama faithful don’t know half of what they think they know and should be listened to only so that they may be conditioned, retaught, and corrected.